I know, I’m sorry for the tap out title on this piece. It is spineless and cowardly. But I’ve gotten my hopes up enough times now, just to watch uranium prices breach new lows, that I will not tag along again.

It does appear, based on the very thinly traded reporting I have access to, that pricing for uranium fuel has increased dramatically in the past few weeks from around $28 per pound, to around $32 per pound.

This is of course nowhere near the $50 level it was at just a few short years ago. However, steps are to be taken incrementally. I want to see this hold up, then wait and see some more.

CCJ remains my only uranium play; I made a short trade in UEC for a wash earlier this year and decided the time was not right for the small miners.

My earliest prediction following the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown was that, if a V shape recovery could not quickly follow the price deflation, then at or around the three year anniversary would mark the recovery in nuclear fuel investments.

So far this year, those hopes have not been met. But there is still time; a few months later is not much off, and I could live with a year or two even…provided the rewards are rich enough.

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Sure my account doesn’t really show the anguish I am expecting yet, but that means little. You can be sure, the black hooded man is just around the corner, waiting to carry me off.

What am I talking about?

Check out uranium spot prices. I’m seeing spot now is down to $28 per pound. This floorless plunge cannot be hinting of pleasantries awaiting. We are experiencing bottomless pit action here; the screams of comrades ever echoing their misplaced footing.

There can be only one meaning behind this level of gore; someone(s) have finally been cashed out by the no sales nature of uranium brokerage these days. They are desperate for a bid – any bid – just something to keep the doors open.

This ends in a full scale liquidation or fire sales acquisitions, folks.

And to complete the cycle, Japan announced that their early nuclear restart aspirations have been put on notice by a low circuit court, which ruled against the restarts based on their status as nuclear safety experts…

A preliminary look says the court doesn’t actually have the authority to stop anything. Japan’s energy cabinet has already reaffirmed Japan’s commitment to restart the reactors, more or less brushing aside the court.

But this is bad publicity. Public opinion in Japan remains slated against nuclear power. I’m of the mind they still go through with it (they have to), but it’s going to be a very public, bitter contest.

For the moment, having as much CCJ stock as I do (mentioning CCJ’s own Canadian tax complications), plus UEC on the side, I can only presume the Devil is in wait to collect my soul.

Let’s not oblige him…

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If not for Basic Energy Services turning on a dime and sprinting away from the rest of the trash that comprises this trading session, I would be having a pretty bad day.

UEC is down over 50% since I bought it. Mind you, as I have stated repeatedly, it is a small position. At its peak, it was under 5% of my account. So I’m not panicked here. But damn it, that was my 5%.

Give me my money back.

The trouble with the uranium miners (and the reason I’ve been very adamant up until now to just keep it simple and avoid the smaller businesses) is pretty forwardly summed up in UEC’s latest filing. They sold $0.00 in revenue in the first three months of 2014.

That’s $0.00.

The 2014 YEAR OF URANIUM BLISS (or whatever the hell I called it) …has been cancelled. Uranium spot just nosedived this week and, even though I suspect this flash crash is nearer the end of the turmoil, that kind of godless price action can only portend one thing.

Somebody is about to get liquidated.

I just pray it isn’t UEC.

CCJ is treading water daily. It’s all she can do to hold the line, but one false move and it’s a quick list to the side and down she goes.

The rest of my positions are holding up fairly well, actually. The multifamily theme remains tantalizing, particularly now that the primary argument against them – a resurgence in homeownership rates and a drop in occupancy for rentals – is such obvious bunk. AEC and MAA should continue to perform.

NRP has held up decent enough, following the 25% washout it took this year. That’s probably been my worst idea so far in 2014. But they are getting things under control, I have a hunch coal may be a terrific investment here, and I get to collect 8% annually while I wait.

I’m definitely not +10% for the year anymore, but there’s another 8 months to make something happen yet. My fear isn’t my positions, it’s what consequence an entire index of investors getting their combined comeuppance will have on me.

The NASDAQ traders got stupid. Real stupid. Will that spill over to me? It’s looking likely.

Like it or not, the stock market tends to take on a real flare of the vineyard effect. You pop up five vineyards next to each other, they all do well. Plenty of room to visit each, for the patrons. In fact, it draws in more business.

But if one of those bastards let’s an infestation go unattended; suddenly you have nothing but tears and reek wine.

Tesla earnings are out after the bell. Let’s see what happens there.

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The big thing holding back the uranium miners right now isn’t concern for the long term viability of the industry – to the contrary, it is very clear to everyone that nuclear power generation is about to increase. Even concern in the US over aging reactors being taken offline is being tempered as four new state of the art models have been approved for construction.

Actually, the major impediment to higher prices is just the spot price for U3O8. The broker I follow has reported the spot price has just corrected back to new lows (based on how many virtually non-existent sales, I cannot say). URA meanwhile shows prices have corrected from the recent rally, although still off the bottom.

In that spirit, here is what I’m reading.

Uranium Participation Corp (TSX:U) is the only physically backed uranium fund. The company’s primary objective is to achieve appreciation in the value of its uranium holdings through increases in the uranium spot price. In December, Raymond James analyst David Sadowski made a case for investing in UPC, a fund managed by the management team responsible for Denison Mines (TSX:DML), explaining that the fund offers investors with “great exposure to a uranium price rebound without the typical exploration, development or mining risks associated with some of the other equities.”

After having completed a $57.6 million bought deal financing on February 6, UPC has made its first purchase of uranium in four years. The company announced on Friday that it would use a portion of bought deal financing to purchase 850,000 pounds of U3O8 at an average cost of US$34.74. UPC notes that 250,000 pounds have already been delivered, the remainder will be delivered by the end of June.

In a note to investors, David Sadowski views UPC’s latest announcement as a point in the company’s favor, supported by the overall sentiment that uranium prices are set to strengthen over the next 12 to 14 months on supply shortfalls and JApanese reactor restarts. Given these variables, and the companies current available cash, Sadowski expects to see another purchase of 800, 000 – 900,000 pounds of uranium sometime in the coming weeks.

I’m still confident we see nuclear take off this year. In the past I’ve been a little more shy about such a direct claim, arguing “sometime in the next X years,” instead. But I do believe 2014 will be the year.

I also think the volatile pricing we’re seeing is the market putting in a bottom / shaking out the weak hands as the big players start to take a more direct financial interest.

Recall from our prior discussions that the refueling needs of real reactors is almost logistics free. A nuclear reactor can run at full power for almost three years without needing a delivery of fuel from the outside, on nothing but what’s in the rods plus the typical amount of fuel in storage for a common model.

From 2011, three years is almost up. By which, I would surmise, nuclear power operations in aggregate will either begin to see electricity output decline, or else need to make a purchase.

Just my two cents on the matter.

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The fed decision to test the waters with a taper while I was away did surprise me, somewhat. Yet it did not phase me much and so I elected to remain on vacation, silent on the issue.

I would state now in hindsight that a $5B per month taper (with as much as another $5-10B in the works) would still put the Federal Reserve on path to add another ~$800B to its balance sheet in 2014. This remains colossal and would have the Fed assets outstanding at just under $5 Trillion by 2015.

They may very well have tapered by $5B/month just because they were running out of things to buy…(laughter)

If I were to state things that concern me as potential impediments to the US economy and growth, they would list (1) consumer slowdown from budget impacts (pension, healthcare costs, rents/mortgage, increased retirement contributions, etc), (2) foreign existential shocks (EU breakup, Asian crisis, similar collapse that disrupts foreign trade) – where exactly did the EU government debt go and why is it now suddenly not an issue? Who is buying it (ECB, Fed, banking scheme, inter-government trade imbalances, etc)? And what stops non-payment concerns from popping up again in the future? and (3) the election of a Republican majority

But banking solvency just isn’t on that list right now. Neither is inflation, really, although long term prospects of an uncontrollable outbreak of inflation remains a viable possibility. With credit expansion in this country limited to growth of government balance sheets, deflationary pressure is set to commence…until it doesn’t. In the meantime, another ~$1 Trillion of free money to those closest to the trough will keep a major disruption of financial assets here at home as a low probability outcome. Of course, this bodes ill for the “wealth equality” lot, but they’re too dumb to call the system out on that, so we maintain the course.

Concerns aside, I am optimistic. Recessions don’t last forever, and my concerns are outweighed by hope in outlook. I am very long (no margin) and prepared to reap the rewards of economic growth. It’s been almost six years; the system has been on a hyperactive outlook for problems which greatly reduces the likelihood that a real “Black Swan” manages to crop up. It could still happen of course, but with hundreds of thousands of financial professionals calling bubbles as quickly as problems crop up, and a full time central banking staff armed with an unlimited supply of money attacking them at first sight, how exactly is a crisis supposed to materialize from all of this?

The only room for crisis in the US is rampant commodity/asset appreciation, which remains benign. That or an elsewise major shock to the consumer. Financial assets and liquidity issues are covered.

Now, that being said, historically we haven’t had a period longer than 10 years without a recession since at least 1789 (and probably not since long before that either – I just lack records to verify a more robust claim). I’d say the expectation of a correction since the Great Depression is 5-10 years with occasional 1-3 year shocks intermittently. We’re past the small shocks phase, which would put the expectation at right about where we’re at.

These times are unprecedented and the support the Fed is willing to lend the markets (unlike any time in recorded history) makes me think we blow through the averages. I want to say this ship will have the wind to sail to years seven, eight or nine, uninterrupted. We may even match the record holder of 10 or above.

However, it would be foolhardy to doubt another recession will most likely crop up before 2020. The ever growing levels of margin debt to buy equities may well be the first sign of the beginning of the final run before that. Of course it could be nothing.

My belief then is that a long commitment remains the way to go. I have been positively surprised by recent developments that have overridden prior comments on wanting to have a larger cash position by about this time (end of 2013) that I made late last year. However, as gains are taken, a portion should begun to be set aside, starting sometime mid 2014 to early 2015. This should create a reserve build-up of steadily marching intervals (10-20%, with a 1-2% increase every month topping out at around 40-50% of ones account value) sometime around late 2015 to early 2016.

At such time, a second hard look should be had. Earlier and exceptional strength should trigger a reassessment of these statements. Casual to quality growth does not necessarily change them. A major weakness (such as a shock of a GOP majority and fear of monetary policy interference) of course may necessitate a sudden course change.

My most hated places to invest are land/real estate (excluding multifamily or renting derived), oil companies (excluding natural gas predominated), and retail (excluding facilitation to the ultra-rich).

My favorite places center around natural gas production expansion, uranium, coal, multifamily REITs, and I remain interested in holding physical precious metals in a full position in the event an inflation shock from significant expansion in credit hits the economy.

I’m indifferent to the insurance market – especially health insurance. It could swing either way; they crawled into bed with the devil so it’s all political at this point. On the one hand, the entire market is shifting in wild and unpredictable ways. On the other, the feds are rigging the game in the insurance companies favor. Just stay away.

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Long ago, when I first purchased CCJ, in the midst of a nuclear reactor melting down on a coastline in the Pacific, I told you that there was more to this than the panic being cultivated by professional fire-alarm pullers.

And there were two primary reasons at that time which I gave. The first, and most obvious, of course, was that one does not just restructure the load production of a country’s power grid over night. Watching Japan struggle with prices as they import the coal needed to replace that energy has been an exercise in this concept.

Across the planet, other nations that declared their intentions to wean off nuclear energy are also realizing how difficult this task will actually be.

But the other main reason I gave why Japan, specifically, would not be divesting itself of nuclear assets was not economical. It was military.

Japan’s hardship is that it is an island nation with weak natural resources. And Her ancestral rival is a massive half a continent, sporting more than one billion people and rich natural resources just a short ship ride away.

In a peace time environment, Japan may have taken her sweet time (and much wasted money and hardship) restarting the nuclear energy program. The Japanese are a notoriously conservative culture, and if you have ever worked with a Japanese company, you know just what I mean by that.

But even Japan, with her slow, careful processions, has limits of patience.

Japan’s greatest threat is a blockade of supply routes. A steady flow of resources into the country is necessary to maintain it. These supply routes, not unlike the UK’s in World War 2, would prove a great headache and cause of domestic problems in a military conflict.

It’s bad enough importing food, goods, raw materials, munitions, etcetera. And having your nations power grid at the mercy of getting boats past enemy naval fleets is just one extra pitfall that Japanese military leadership will not want to deal with.

This was one of the main reasons Japan decided on the nuclear path years ago to begin with. A nuclear reactor carries enough fuel both active and in storage to supply full power for around 3 years.

Compare that to a coal plant, which under full load can require a delivery of about 15,000 tons of fuel a day. This approach requires a constant flow of fuel and also very large holding sites, both of which become attractive and hard to defend targets in wartime.

I bring this up because just recently, Japan’s leadership has reaffirmed the country’s commitment to safe nuclear power. A recent report from Cameco management issued guidance of a sizable fraction of Japan’s total nuclear assets beginning to come back online. This same report detailed that Cameco has observed Japan to be net buyers of nuclear fuel at this point in time.

This should be seen as reducing the uncertainty surrounding Japan’s fuel assets. One of the many worries supplying downward pressure on nuclear spot price has been that Japanese utilities may begin selling off unused fuel. This does not seem to be the case.

In the same presentation, Cameco also reassured audience members that Cameco will not be entering into any long term fuel contracts at these prices, which Cameco considers unreasonable. They are waiting for the market to set rates higher, and have instead dedicated themselves to shoring up the balance sheet and controlling costs to bide the time.

For the moment, the uranium market remains cold. But Cameco is committed to outlasting the cold spell. I remain very excited in the prospects of CCJ, and it remains my largest position at this time.

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